It is pretty crazy that in the same case a company would sue a city for trying to provide services that the company refuses to supply and yet claim that collaborating with the city would be anti-competitive.
http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/BAaf/~3/390250299/20080911-telco-to-town-were-suing-you-because-we-care.html
More after the jump....
We face a similar sittuation in Seattle (in the city limits). I'm stuck with Comcast for my high speed internet because the molasses slow offerings from Qwest get my panties in a bunch. Sure Comcast will one day roll out some higher speed services, but it will no doubt be at a cost premium and they will still likely be behind what the likes of Verizon FIoS is offering.
Well why doesn't Verizon turn its cable laying machine towards the city (from the east side or north end of the lake where they have Verizon FIoS service). Well that would be because Qwest has an exclusive right to the telco in the city. Are you fucking kidding me?
So if Seattle decided that we were not going to wait for Qwest to get off their broke asses and lay some quality bandwidth pipes and that we were going to do it as a municipal network... very likely Qwest would sue, and delay delay delay until they could start their own project so they wouldn't miss out on funds.
It seems like it is time to break the Telco exclusivity rights that they have held a little too long in this country and let some true competition in. Or do what other first world countries have done and make the internet a utility run by the state. Either way the old way sucks and needs changed... where is Obama?
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